


Show You What All That Howl Is For

by HighVelocity



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-09
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-28 22:03:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/997452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HighVelocity/pseuds/HighVelocity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brad packs up, moves out, and strikes up a friendship of sorts with the locals. He can't explain much more than that without sounding like a crazy person, so he doesn't try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Show You What All That Howl Is For

Every now and again, Brad would think about how this weird  _thing_  he had with the wolves had started up. In his opinion it'd begun with a red-gold ball of dripping wet fur on his doorstep - which he'd managed to entice out of the rain and under shelter, without losing anything vital. He'd wrapped it in a towel and rubbed it dry, the stupid thing. Animals could die of exposure, too. It had been an impulse, something hard and hot coiling in his chest and in his gut, spurring him into motion as soon as he'd seen the pathetic thing crawl out of the rain. And then, like any good STD, it kept coming back.   
  
In Ray Person's repressed, constantly devolving plebian peabrain, however,  _Brad_  was the one who started it by ' _moving out where no human could get him, which is totally not running the fuck away from your relationship and life problems, Bradley Colbert_ ' and subsequently by ignoring the presence of the majority of the local wildlife - ' _which only ever endears your superb Iceman godliness to them, o great one, because then they figure that you don't see them and you're not about to eat them, ergo you're not dangerous -_ '  
  
"Do you even know what the fuck 'ergo' means?" Brad had demanded.  
  
"Sure, yeah! Debate team, remember?" And then he launched right into another tirade.   
  
Sometimes, he missed Ray and that goat-laugh of his - exactly the way a bleat would sound if Satan and a goat fucked and ended up with a baby that was always shocked into laughing.  
  
Other times, though, not so much. Ray might've been a good friend - a  _solid_  friend, the kind everyone needed and didn't always find, but Ray also had seen him at the absolute lowest points of his life and his career. What Brad needed right now wasn't a heavy dose of Person. He needed solitude.  
  
So he packed up the California home and put aside his surfboards, sold the tv and the furniture, sold the house, the car that wasn't his. He donated the clothes and kept the bedlinen. He threw out the food and the cleaning supplies he no longer needed, kept the plates and sealed up the photographs in sturdy plastic boxes. In a moment of sheer perversity, Brad cached them, and left the coordinates printed in a sheaf of paper on the floor of the storage unit he'd rented. He no longer thought about it gathering dust, or about the caches slowly being swallowed up by the earth.  
  
Brad didn't quite understand people anymore, but he understood pushing through the pain, because  _pain was weakness leaving the body_.  
  
Ex-girlfriend marries best friend. They live, they love, they have a child, they die in a vehicular accident. Child is adopted by another family member. Their home, a simple space containing laughter and cautious hope and forgetfulness, is broken down in much the same way Brad had broken  _his_  down.   
  
Some things, Brad said to a quietly attentive Ray the night before he moved into his new house, were universal.  
  
\---  
  
Word travelled, it seemed, and they'd started to visit. Brad figured that even wolves had their own damned grapevine. It was a different kind of visitation from the quiet steps of deer and chipmunk and bird, passing through serenely once they accepted that Brad wasn't out to plug their little brains with buckshot. These guys, these wolves, were  _massive_ , some of the biggest he'd ever seen, gray and gold and dark brown with intelligent faces and curious eyes. At first, they lurked at the edge of the trees while he worked, went about his daily life, stretched and went for long runs and made regular treks for supplies. Then they started moving in, getting bolder, as bold as the same red-gold pup he'd scrubbed dry one stormy spring night, with bright green eyes and gentle manners.  
  
He wasn't worried, not at all, no.   
  
Not really.  
  
Brad still found himself asking the Mexican-with-a-chip-on-his-shoulder who manned the counter of the single, dinky grocery store in town if wolves were common around the area.  
  
He definitely wasn't expecting the belly laugh he got out of Poke.  
  
"Shit, dawg, the fuck you live? A dump so posh that them wolves won't even go near your white boy Aryan ass?"  
  
"I feel like I should be offended," Brad said dryly. "As it is, I've decided I should be the bigger man today, and attempt some feelings of goodwill towards the sole proprietor in this town. No, Poke, I'm more than capable of handling myself. I'm just asking if it's normal for them to play peeping tom. They've been getting pretty bold lately."  
  
Poke shook his head as he bagged up Brad's purchases. "They're all around the place, dawg. We live with them. Everyone in this place knows them. Gotta respect the wild things, too, Brad. This is one of the few places where we actually manage to coexist, because we respect each other. I don't fuck their shit up, they don't drag my ass behind the freezer out back and chew my face off." He paused, rubbed a hand over his clean-shaven head. Poke's dark eyes seemed to twinkle.   
  
"But to answer your question, yeah. They're a curious lot. Most folks that just move in and figure out that there's massive wolves around usually freak out, pack up, run for the hills like cops were comin' for their secret little weed stash. They don't give the wolves a chance. So give it time," he advised. "They probably like you. Shit, you been here what, three months now?"  
  
"Closer to four," Brad replied.  
  
"See, you ain't been ate up yet. They like you."  
  
Brad contemplated the kind of give and take - and the magnitude of the sheer delusion that living with big fucking wolves entailed. And just how much booze was consumed per head, in this quiet little town. He grabbed the bags, gave Poke a lopsided smile. "Thanks for the reassurances."  
  
"Anytime, dawg."  
  
When he left the store, Brad had planned on getting right back on his bike and riding home. Instead, he'd found himself staring down an impressive collection of wolf-related literature in the local library, and wondering if these people weren't just  _obsessed_  with wolves. It would be just his luck, to wind up in Oz when all he wanted was an easy escape. Ray sometimes joked about him having chosen his new location by throwing darts at a map. Or heck, punching a .22 through one.   
  
Ray was never,  _ever_  going to hear of just how right he'd been.  
  
He went home with an armful of books that made the suspension on his beloved bike groan. Over a mug of coffee, he cracked open a thick volume that looked promising and began studying in earnest. Respect and understand them, Poke had said, and they won't be a problem. He learnt about wolf biology. Their history. Evolution. How they branched off into dog, and then  _dogs_ , plural. He studied passages on wolf behaviour, body languages, coat colours, markings, territorial claims, crossbreeding. It fascinated him as he chewed through the dwindling pile, mission-intense.  
  
It kept the pain at bay, out of his heart and out of his mind.  
  
\---  
  
Brad's place was isolated; he could see how it was probably a little more wolf-friendly than most others. Sometimes they just lurked at the edge of the trees while he worked on his bike, cleaned, chopped wood. Sometimes they inched close, and then closer, watching him.  
  
Brad wasn't much of an animal person, but even he could see they meant no harm, heads lifted, eyes bright, ears pricked. They sure were polite about it.  
  
And then one night, one of them set up shop in front of his door and howled the place down, until he'd stormed out to either shut it up or shoot it, only to have teeth clamp onto the hem of his pants and his attention drawn to golden-brown fur and agonised blue eyes. It was one of the younger wolves in what he'd started to call The Pack, sprawled on the ground, exhausted, with a bloody paw and a ripped up foreleg.  
  
He wasn't an animal person, but when an injured animal trailed barbed wire from what had obviously been a trap, there was only one logical course of action - you fixed that shit up and tried not to think too hard of murder.  
  
Once he'd cleaned and dressed the wolf's leg, he set out to track down and disable all the traps he could find. There weren't as many as he'd thought there would be, but what he  _did_  find were torture devices. He had no other words for it. There was even one with iron spikes and a massive log, and...  
  
If the terrorists he'd fought had had access to half the materials, ingenuity and sheer barbarism shown in those traps, they'd have been up shit creek and drowning in asswater within  _hours_  of the invasion. Brad made mental notes. The authorities needed to be informed. He needed to start keeping actual notes, sectioning up the area, widening his search, maybe even upgrading his gear.  
  
It didn't surprise him to find the wolf gone by the time he got back.  
  
The next day, however, two men and a wolf with a bandaged foreleg sat in front of his cabin, waiting for him. Rudy, Pappy, and Walt were their names, and they thanked him politely for helping with Walt's leg.  
  
Brad took it all in stride - up until that point, he could couch the belief that they were actually two guys with a pet wolf or a wolf-like dog - until they shifted  _right the fuck there_  in front of him and sat down, either to guard Walt, or to freak Brad out.  
  
Brad decided then that his stride needed a damned good Scotch to help him deal with it. Fuck, his chores could wait. Gathering supplies could wait.  
  
He was a Devil Dog - still a Devil Dog, and would be one until the day he died - but not even surviving the clusterfuck of multiple deployments where he'd dealt with shitshows above and beyond what the rational civilian mind could compute were enough to prepare him for this.   
  
So he toasted them and his slipping grasp of sanity, managed to entice Pappy out of wolf form to share a Scotch with him, and ended up discovering that they had quite a bit more in common than he'd initially expected.  
  
\---  
  
Brad considered moving out, once - the morning after he found out just what the wolves really were. He still walked a tenuous line between acceptance and freaking the fuck out, because werewolves, god-fucking-dammit. Ray would have a fucking field trip with that. Where did you draw the line between what was human and what was animal?   
  
In the middle of this philosophical crisis, Walt turned up with the same red-gold wolf he'd helped once before. They both beelined for Brad, greeting him with puppy barks, yips, and wagging tails. Walt rolled, completely un-self conscious, and pleaded with his bright blue eyes to be scratched, even going as far as to roll over onto his back and wriggle around. The other wolf made a huffing sound, as though he was laughing, and turned green eyes up to Brad.  _What're you waiting for?_ , they seemed to say. Brad hesitated, cursed himself in three different languages, and finally relented and crouched down beside Walt.  
  
"This is giving me the fucking weirds," he muttered to no one in particular. But then, he'd already dried off and rubbed down one of them. No take-backsies, as Ray would've said. Brad exhaled through his nose, let his hand rest on coarse fur. Walt nudged up under his hand, guiding it into position.  _Now would you **please**  start scratching me? Fucking itches._  
  
Without thinking too much about it, Brad obeyed, petting through Walt's ruff, then switching to using both hands to give him a proper scratching. He felt strangely gratified when Walt started making the same high-pitched little squeaks his dog used to make when he hit the perfect spot, tail thumping on the ground like a bass drum. Brad grinned, then suddenly found himself with an armful of red-gold fur and a wet nose questing around his shoulder and jaw.   
  
God damn these fuckers, he thought, almost fondly, and laughed out loud. Forget his worries. These bastards were puppies, not wolves. He ended up flat on his back, getting his face throughly washed for his efforts.   
  
Note to self; see if the pet store carried big fucking grooming brushes. Those would come in handy.  
  
\---  
  
Through Rudy and Pappy, and with Walt's somewhat unwitting help, Brad struck up a kind of friendship with one Doc Bryan, a former Navy Corpsman turned vet turned werewolf. Tim Bryan once dedicated his life to helping his fellow men; when he retired from duty, he turned to animal medicine. One bad bite, though, tilted his life enough to have him move out to a quieter town, where he tended to horses, farm dogs, barn cats, one or two bad-tempered goats and a literal zoo of animals. Not counting the wild ones.  
  
Brad knew this because a couple of days after Rudy and Pappy's visit, Doc Bryan came to his house while Walt was there, and growled something about keeping wounds and dressings clean, for god's sakes, you stupid fuck. Walt tried to look appropriately cowed while Doc inspected Brad's handiwork; Brad stood off to one side trying to blend into the scenery.  
  
Eventually, he pronounced it passable, and turned his attention to Brad.  
  
"Tim Bryan," he said, extending a hand. "I see you've met our happy family. Decent work on Walt's leg. Thanks for the first aid."  
  
"Seemed the right thing to do at the time. Sure it could've been done better. Brad Colbert."  
  
Doc chuckled. "Give these guys enough time to fuck shit up, you'll be stitching wounds up like a pro in no time. They'll put you through the wringer. Like vet school, only a lot more liable to make you shit bricks, with the stunts they pull."  
  
At their feet, Walt snorted in disgust.  _Lies_ , his expression seemed to say. Brad's lips twitched in a reluctant smile.  
  
\---  
  
Spring turned into summer. The wolves - mostly Nate - kept up with their regular visits, and the two big grooming brushes Brad had gotten at the store received regular workouts. Doc, when he saw Brad combing out Walt's coat, joked about him starting up a dog grooming business; they'd pay Brad in good venison and monthly protection from black bears. Brad spun ideas about turning the gathered fur into fuzzy sweaters, and ran those plans out loud just to see the look on Doc's face. The birds would be damned cosy this nesting season, he thought, watching piles of loose fur blow away in the wind. Rudy and Pappy dropped by less, but they had big wolf matters to attend to, keeping the woods and virgins safe and all that shit.  
  
When the heat started really sinking in, Brad charted the movements of the sun for a few days before installing a small trough along the one side of the house that had the most shade. Walt and Nate christened it by jumping into it and splashing out all the water.  
  
Once, and only once, he saw a pretty little wolf, with a dark brown coat that shaded to cream on her forelegs and belly. It was Nate who pointed her out to Brad; he'd have missed it otherwise. She paused when Nate stood up and waved, cocked her ears in their direction, then slid away into the woods, with three or four shadows trailing after her.  
  
"That's Cara," he said. "Wynn's mate."  
  
"She's good looking," Brad responded, mostly to be polite.   
  
"And scary. You don't cross Cara and expect to get away with it."  
  
"Huh."  
  
Nate sat down and went back to reading. Brad didn't know if he should be mildly disturbed or if it was just a little bit appropriate that Nate would love the classics; he was currently making his way through  _War and Peace_. Brad made a mental note to pull on family connections for unloved books. Nate would probably like that.  
  
One warm summer evening, Nate trotted up to his feet, and flopped. Brad stared at him.  
  
"Usually you've got better manners than that, Nate," he said, pushing upright and going around to the corner of the deck where the Fuzzy First Aid resided. Brad had figured that it was better to have it out there, free for use, rather than locked up inside. That way, anyone who needed it could get to it, and he didn't have to be woken up by wildly howling wolves.  
  
Their first meeting notwithstanding, Nate had always been the one polite son of a bitch - literally - who went right up to you and sat at your feet, head high, ears pricked, tail curled, waiting for a command. He listened when you said 'sit', came when you murmured 'come with me', and waited with preternatural patience.  
  
Of course, once a guy figured out that Nate wasn't just a sleek red-gold wolf but a  _werewolf_  it made a lot more sense. It also skirted the edge of the fucking weirds. Brad had seen Nate in human form all of once, something that seemed burnt into his memory - grass-green eyes, messy hair that made him look like jailbait, and a mouth made to suck cock.   
  
 _I think I've earned a little leeway this time,_  Nate huffed, twisting to lick at his shoulder. His voice jerked Brad back to the present, drawing his attention to Nate's shoulder. It still oozed blood, and the fur was matted.  _Wynn challeged Craig for alpha position after he - well, suffice to say it was stupid as hell. Griego stepped in and -_  
  
"And then you waded into the scrap, like the good little pup you are," Brad said dryly.   
  
Nate gave him a serious look from over his shoulder.  _I did, but it was more than that,_  he said, getting up and limping closer to Brad, who frowned at the slow, jerky movements, so far from Nate's usual fluid grace.  _This is an alpha who can barely hold his own pack together, and keeps pulling us into stupid situations. He nearly got Doc killed last night, and Wynn went right for that fucker's throat._  
  
"What did he do, exactly?"  
  
 _Thought it would boost morale to carve out more territory, maybe score a few females._  The curl of Nate's lip, baring his fangs, told Brad exactly what he thought of that particular idea.  _Doc was with us. It's nice when he is. We don't see him too much, he's always busy._  
  
"So, I take it the girls didn't want to go," he ventured, assembling bowl, clean water, and washcloth. All the better to clean your big ears with, he thought.  
  
Nate inclined his head in the wolf version of a nod, then settled on his haunches as Brad sat down beside him on the steps, carefully wiping away caked blood that he'd missed.   
  
 _You can't appropriate females, that's... that's cro-magnon thinking. Doc's words, verbatim. It really is their decision if they want to run with you, or not at all. Craig doesn't seem to get that. Nearly had his muzzle slashed open side to side by the other alpha, and for what? There aren't really that many of us as it stands, and -_  
  
He broke off, wincing. Brad eased up on his wound-cleaning, although he didn't think it was the pain that made Nate stop. Fucker limped all the way here, a little thing like having his shoulder cleaned up wasn't going to stop him.  _Anyway, Wynn's taken over the pack._  Nate's tail thumped on the wood. He was pleased with himself.  
  
"Good," Brad managed.   
  
When he took the time to really think about it, the Pack acted rather like Marines. Tough moto motherfuckers, howling out their 'oorah!'s into the night sky, a tightly-knit unit that worked together seamlessly, like a machine. And Brad could think of a few guys who acted in much the same way the wolves did. It was a little eerie.  
  
Pack laws were probably a little more fair, though, come to think of it. No dick to be sucked or ass to be kissed, and far less politics of the kind that fucked things up and did too much collateral damage. You just waded in and fought for what was yours; sometimes you won, sometimes you lost. It was very physical, a little too easy, and a little too permanent.  
  
\---  
  
"... You're really not wrong about Nate."  
  
"Pardon?"  
  
"When you say he's a young thing. Because he is."  
  
Brad sent him one long, cool stare. "He can't be younger than twenty-five."  
  
Doc snorted, lips curling. He took his time, picking his words. "You know all those old stories about werewolves? How they're man-beasts all subject to an inane, bullshit excuse of a curse, that wrecks their bodies, mangles them and then moulds them into some hairy, vicious monster that would sooner scrape your guts out through your nostrils than give you the time of day?"  
  
"I... do."   
  
"Here's the trick," Doc said, leaning forward, face intense. There was a bottle of beer in his hand, and in Brad's hand that they'd both forgotten about. "Half those stories are lies, Brad. They don't cover the ones about the wolves and the humans who love. They don't think about the wolves that cared, that protected the lost and lonely and saved the broken. Those stories are the property of selkies and fuckin' mermaids," he said, then spat to one side. "But this one belongs to us," he continued with a bitter twist of his mouth. "Humans are idiots. They're simple peasants. Just a little glamour and you're on your way."  
  
"Nate isn't really - Nate was a wolf," Doc continued. "He's a foundling. He turned up at my door one day, I took him in. It happens, if they want something enough, hard enough to go through with that shift, and not every wolf can do it, but apparently the ones in this area are a little more susceptible to it. A little smarter, too. That first shift is hard as fuck, and the wolf understands fuckall of what's going on. Some of your senses are dulled, others sharpened, and others lead to things you've never felt before. He's a baby in an adult's skin, Brad. You have to understand that."  
  
"He's a wolf and a kid in disguise. Got it."  
  
"That and he basically  _is_  my kid, Brad, so you be nice to him or I  _will_  bite off your balls and feed them to you."  
  
"At least I still get to keep them," he deadpanned.  
  
Doc snorted, but Brad could see the hint of a smile in the wrinkles around his eyes.  
  
\---  
  
As a human, Nate didn't - and still doesn't really know what personal distance is. It's a holdover from his wolf mind, where physical contact was an important part of everyday language and there were no alien human customs to train the tendency to touch out of him. Whether in fuzzymode or as a human, he always snuggled into Brad; in the early days, it was awkward even for a man used to being crammed in sardine can environments, reverse-Tardis humvees, and bunk beds that wouldn't fit a midget, let alone his giant Viking ass.  
  
"Doc, this can't really be kosher," he'd griped, brushing fur off his shorts. Nate had fallen asleep in his lap earlier that day. "I get that Nate's all for body contact but - "  
  
"No one gives a fuck, Brad, you're in the fucking boondocks," Doc had said, levelling one of his famous 'no time for your horseshit' looks onto Brad. Brad muttered something about 'sister-fucking, whiskey tango cousin-marrying animal-fucking country.' "And it's not like you'd be robbing a cradle, he's well beyond legal. That change happens for a reason."  
  
"A reason, huh."  
  
"Yep." Doc raised his beer to the sunset, cheerfully oblivious to Brad's discomfort. "Probably because he likes you. But what it really is, only one person knows, and that's neither you nor me. You're going to have to ask Nate if you ever want to find out."  
  
Ray  _really_  was going to have a field day with all this bullshit. Brad's grip tightened reflexively on his own drink, and he set it aside before he wound up crushing it.  
  
"He likes me?"  
  
Doc glanced at him, in response to something in Brad's tone, then scoffed. "Get your panties out of that wad, Brad, you Nordic retard," he growled. "So riddle me this. You met Cara yet?"  
  
"Nate's pointed her out to me," he replied. Disbelief, something akin to shock, and dread crawled over his skin, seeping through it to form a leaden ball in the pit of his belly. He wasn't sure he liked where this was going.  
  
"Okay, so how do you figure Mike met his wife? She was a wolf once. Fell in love with him. Or Pappy, he found a kind of brother-mate in Rudy. Saved each other's ass so many times even they've stopped counting. The point is, it's _fine_ , Brad."  
  
Silence draped around them like a blanket while Brad struggled through these epiphanies.  
  
"Okay, I retract the animal-fucking part of my earlier statement," he announced, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Shit."   
  
"It makes you feel any better, no one actually said anything about fucking, that's completely optional. If you two just want to keep it at friends, no one's gonna complain." Doc sat back in the lumpy armchair. "You're a grown fucking man, too. I can't believe you want me to drag out the birds and the bees again."  
  
"No, thanks." Brad swallowed beer. "Once is enough."  
  
\---  
  
Later that week, when Nate turned up for what they jokingly called 'study sessions', Brad found himself looking over the wolf-turned-man with fresh eyes. Nate was more than a pretty face and sweet manners, and a secret that was better left untouched. As a person he was exceedingly polite, maybe even a little old-fashioned; insanely curious, smart, and a damned quick learner. Nate went from 'what the fuck are these squiggles' when faced with the alphabet to reading the fucking  _classics_.   
  
He still tended to count in the simple wolfish manner, though; one through to five, then multiples of fives. Two fives, three fives, and then just  _lots_. Or  _too many_. It was a quirk that had its charms, though taking him shopping was a real challenge. Brad did try teaching him maths once, because he'd asked, but neither of them were sure of any success in that area at all, so they left it for wiser and better people.  
  
The realisation that he geniunely liked Nate hit him in the gut, a slow motion spread of heat that twisted when he thought about Nate's head in his lap; Nate's body pressed to his side. Nate with his chin resting on his forelegs as Brad worked on bike maintanence, both of them listening to the radio. At some point, he'd started reading aloud to Nate, who went from simply listening with his head cocked to one side, to listening with his big head resting across Brad's thighs, ears twitching.  
  
Then the day came when Nate started asking questions. A little after that, the debates began. Somewhere around the time Brad started  _losing_  these debates, he turned Nate onto Google and set him loose. Doc laughed his ass off at that. Brad knew he was doomed. Probably in more ways than just getting his ass kicked at ethics debates with a _wolf_.  
  
"Go have your fights on the Internet," he told Nate. Nate smirked, flexed his fingers, and started pecking away at the keyboard. It didn't take him long to realise that keyboards and paws didn't always work well together, so Nate started hanging around in human form, with his one nod to decency the jeans that Brad made him wear.  
  
That might have been a tactical error in hindsight, Brad thought. Times like those, he forgot what Nate really was. He was very human. A little innocent, a little shiny, a little naive, but utterly human.   
  
And really fucking hot.  
  
Maybe that was the point.  
  
\---  
  
"Come over here, I want to show you something." Brad gestured with a hand, heading into the garage. "Been working on her for a while, since Kocher brought her by. She's not my usual type, but I can't resist a good challenge, and I know how fascinated you get with anything on wheels that goes fast."  
  
Nate cocked an eyebrow at the 'she', and decided to magnanimously ignore the implications that came with the rest of that statement. "Chasing cars is beneath me," he muttered. "You also tend to call all your inanimate objects 'she'," emerged from Nate's mouth, and he winced.  
  
"It's a guy thing. Nine times out of ten, any inanimate object is a 'she'."   
  
"Why's that?"  
  
In lieu of an answer, Brad shrugged, and whisked off the protective tarp, revealing dark, polished curves that gleamed and winked back at Nate.  
  
"Oh. That's... nice," Nate said. Brad simply cocked an eyebrow at him, speaking volumes, and just as Nate opened his mouth to retract that sentence, Brad laughed, low and sweet. Nate felt his heart stumble just hearing it.   
  
"She, is a mechanical marvel, lovingly restored and hand-polished back to life by yours truly, and all you can manage with an extensive, Ivy League-type vocabulary is 'nice'? Tut, tut, Nate Fick."  
  
Nate shook his head with a lopsided smile, then loped over to inspect the bike. It was nice, sure, but it didn't... it just didn't stir him.  
  
"It doesn't look like the wind," he muttered, skimming a palm over the finish. "Really, it's gorgeous, but it's not... it's not quite  _alive_ ," Nate finished. "You know. It's lazy. Doesn't search for the wind, doesn't lean into it."  
  
"For shame, Nate," Brad retorted. But there was an interested gleam in the ice-blue eyes when Nate looked up at him, slightly stung. " _That_  is a Harley-Davidson you're desecrating with your blasphemy."  
  
"I am still not inspired," he intoned, standing up. "You said she's not your usual type, though. So what is?"  
  
Brad inclined his head, eyebrows raised in that way that said 'well then', and turned to another tarp-covered form. "Since you asked so nicely, here."  
  
This time, though. It was different. Nate didn't have to be a wolf to be able to see how reverently Brad treated  _her_  - long hands, callused fingers lifting away the tarp, the softening of mouth and eyes that told Nate clear as day how much he loved this machine, how emotionally invested in it he was.  
  
"Yamaha R-1," he announced. "She's been with me for a while." And had been with him longer than most. Steadfast, loyal, uncomplaining, despite the fact that she was a machine. Brad had spent long hours on that bike, letting the speed and the wind scrape away his problems.   
  
"I've always loved riding," Brad said, kicking a leg over the seat in one smooth motion that Nate yearned to try. "Nothing like it in the world. Just you, a good machine between your legs, a full tank and long stretches of empty road."  
  
"Try running in the woods sometime," Nate replied, more enchanted with the sight of Brad at east on a bike than anything else. All the tension had dropped off the lanky frame. "Freedom in the wind."  
  
And just like that, Nate had  _gotten it_. "Spot on, Nate." Brad's smile was a lopsided thing, and slightly pained. "Like I could outrun everything and it'd all be better."  
  
"I know that feeling," Nate said softly. He shoved his hands in his pockets. Brad's eyes were nearly translucent in this light. "Okay, I want to try. Too cool not to."  
  
The moment broken, Brad shifted to make space for Nate, guiding him through the motions. Hand on handlebar, leg over, weight settled in the seat...  
  
"Nate, you're facing the wrong way."  
  
"Yeah." His grin was cheeky. "I know you usually face the other way."  
  
Brad's single cocked eyebrow blatantly asked him why the fuck he'd thought it would be a good idea.  
  
In answer, he ducked under Brad's jaw, nuzzling into the crook of his neck. It smelt  _good_  - sun-warmed skin, the cool minty hint of whatever soap it was Brad used, sweat. He could feel Brad's breath catch in his throat, hear him swallow.   
  
"Nate..."  
  
"Yeah." Nate dragged the tip of his nose up over the line of Brad's jaw, opened his mouth against it. How many times had he greeted Brad in this manner? He shifted, teeth scraping over skin, then leant back, the better to gauge Brad's reaction. His pupils were blown, shoulders tense.  
  
Brad licked his lips, fingers twitching. "You're going to be the death of me," he growled, gripping Nate's thigh. "Nate, you sure about this? Getting off, kissing on a bike, like some highschool kid?"  
  
"I've never been to school," came the blithe reply. "You say you're a Devil Dog, Brad," Nate teased. "And I'm a wolf. So, show me what all your howl is all about, Devil Dog."  
  
"Don't test me." Brad bared his teeth, tightening his grip on Nate's thighs. It had to hurt by now, but Nate gave no sign of it.  
  
"Point blank, Brad, I want you. Don't even know why, just know that I do. That's why I shifted, I wanted to get to know you better."  
  
Brad remembered Doc talking about bonds, about wolves that loved, blindly and without reason.  
  
"Let's go for a ride," he said, urging Nate off the bike, making him sit properly. He forced himself to hold in the laugh, though it made his lips twitch at the way Nate perked up at the word 'ride'. "Then I want to hear all about this, Nate, you've been holding out on me, you little fuck."  
  
"I'll tell you everything, Brad. Everything."  
  
And for the first time in a long time, Brad could breathe in a way he hadn't been able to before, like a weight had been lifted from his chest. He laughed under his breath, the sound nearly lost under the engine's roar. Nate's arms wound around his waist, holding tight.  
  
"Hold on tight, Nate. We'll race the wind for you."

**Author's Note:**

> 2012 YAGKYAS entry for chemm80 on LJ. Twisting the old werewolf/shapeshifter trope. I can only hope I've done it justice.


End file.
